WITH POLL: BOO! The tricks of the 'Bridgewater Triangle'

Wednesday

Oct 26, 2011 at 12:01 AMOct 26, 2011 at 9:12 PM

This is one of three spooky stories in our special spooky section “BOO”. For more haunting tales click the story links below.

Paranormal researcher Loren Coleman first dubbed it the “Bridgewater Triangle” in the 1970s, but clearly he wasn’t the first to conclude the Hockomock Swamp is a dark and sinister place where terrifying and mysterious things seem to happen on an inexplicably frequent basis.

Hockomock means devil’s swamp or place where evil spirits dwell in Algonquin, Coleman said in his introduction to the 2008 book “Ghosts of the Bridgewater Triangle” by Christopher Balzano.

“Of course it was named ‘Hockomock,’ for it was a strange Fortean location named loosely after the Devil,” Coleman wrote.

Reports of odd and malevolent occurrences within the Bridgewater Triangle abound, said paranormal researcher Christopher Pittman. They include sightings of: UFOs, Bigfoot, ghostly panthers, giant birds and fiendish dogs. Also reported, grotesque cattle mutilations, a mysterious hitchhiker and spooky, disembodied lights and noises. But by far the most common report Pittman receives is of a feeling of being watched while in the swamp.

Rebecca Hyman

This is one of three spooky stories in our special spooky section “BOO”. For more haunting tales click the story links below.

Paranormal researcher Loren Coleman first dubbed it the “Bridgewater Triangle” in the 1970s, but clearly he wasn’t the first to conclude the Hockomock Swamp is a dark and sinister place where terrifying and mysterious things seem to happen on an inexplicably frequent basis.

Hockomock means devil’s swamp or place where evil spirits dwell in Algonquin, Coleman said in his introduction to the 2008 book “Ghosts of the Bridgewater Triangle” by Christopher Balzano.

“Of course it was named ‘Hockomock,’ for it was a strange Fortean location named loosely after the Devil,” Coleman wrote.

But by far the most common report Pittman receives is of a feeling of being watched while in the swamp.

He said the reports often come to him from fishers or hikers from other areas who seem to have no knowledge of the legend of the “Bridgewater Triangle.”

“They find out I’m a paranormal researcher and begin to tell me about this eerie feeling they had and I just know where it happened before they say anything,” said Pittman, who began investigating the Triangle in 1996 when he was still in high school in Attleboro.

The Bridgewater Triangle as Coleman defined it includes the towns of Abington, Freetown and Rehoboth at the tips of the triangle and Brockton, Taunton, the three Bridgewaters, Raynham, Mansfield, Norton and Easton within the triangle and covers about 200 square miles.

Some reports from within the Triangle include:

· “In 1971, Norton police sergeant Thomas Downy was driving along Winter Street in Mansfield toward his home in Easton. As he approached a place known locally as ‘Bird Hill’ in Easton at the edge of the swamp, he was suddenly confronted by a tremendous winged creature over six feet tall with a wingspan of eight to 12 feet,” Coleman said.

· In 1976, a huge black ‘killer dog’ was reported in Abington within the Bridgewater Triangle by Abington firefighter Phillip Kane, who said it ripped the throats out of two of his ponies and terrorized the community for several weeks, Coleman said.

· In 1993, there were a series of reports of a “large, light tan cat the size of a great Dane” dubbed the “Mansfield Mystery Cat,” Coleman said.

· Every January, “spook lights — unexplained elusive balls of light — have been seen over the railroad tracks that run beside the Raynham Dog Track and through the swamp,” Coleman said.

· In 1997, a “law enforcement officer working the night shift in Bridgewater saw a very large triangular UFO with three white and two red star-like lights,” Pittman said.

· For two days and nights in 1970, Bridgewater and state police with attack dogs staged a hunt for a “giant bear,” even though no bears live in the area, following numerous reports of sightings of a hairy seven-foot tall creature, Pittman said.

· “Perhaps the most haunted school in the Triangle is the one that bears its name,” Balzano wrote in “Ghosts of the Bridgewater Triangle.” Among the spots on the Bridgewater State University campus said to be “haunted”: Shea-Durgin dorm room 228 and the auditorium, which is said to receive visits from a mischievous ghost named George who plays with the stage lights and sounds, according to the website “Haunted Places in Massachusetts.”

Pittman, whose day job is as a salesman in an office, said paranormal investigations are his hobby.

“I view myself kind of as a scientist. I’m interested in the stories and the folklore, but before we say this is true and reality I think we need evidence,” Pittman said.

Pittman said “there’s absolutely something special” about the Bridgewater Triangle. But he doesn’t know if the explanation is supernatural or an unexplained but natural phenomenon.

The swamp retains a quality of a “primaeval wilderness,” he said.

One theory is the particular “glacial soils present in the area might contain some kind of natural magnetic mineral that could interfere with compasses, GPS systems and even the human mind,” Pittman said.

Another possibility: “A lot of the UFO and Bigfoot sightings have been near high tension power lines. Is there something about that that affects people’s perceptions?” Pittman asked.

“Is there an actual paranormal reality behind all of the occurrences? I’m not sure that’s the case,” Pittman said.

But, he added, “I’m not sure that’s not the case.”

Retired Raynham Police Chief Lou Pacheco said he’s been hearing the stories and legends about the swamp since he was a kid, but there were few if any actual reports to the police of strange happenings, such as UFO sightings, in town while he was on the force from 1973 until 2010.

“Anytime you have a big tract of land like that that’s not easily accessible you’re going to have mysteries,” Pacheco said.